Fear: More than a mind killer

Halloween is coming up this weekend and everyone is getting excited about getting scared! Woo hoo! That’s the fun type of chest-pounding, horror-movie watching, jump-out-of-your-skin terror that we can TOTALLY get behind. What we can’t (and absolutely WON’T) get behind is the never-ending fearmongering that many women—and girls—live with every single day. 

Is “That’s so scary!” part of your daily vocabulary? Do you say, “I’m so afraid of [something that is happening out in the world] right now,” when you aren’t actually in a life-threatening situation at that moment? Has fear of the unknown stopped you from doing something you want to try or know you need to do?  If so, this episode is for you! 

So, grab a spooktacular libation and your favorite woobie, then get ready to get rid of gettin’ scared.

Cheryl’s cocktail: Ultimate Margarita

·         Milagro Tequila 1.5 oz

·         Cointreau 1 oz

·         Grand Marnier .5 oz

·         .5 oz fresh lime juice

Add tequila, Cointreau and Grand Marnier, and lime juice to a shaker, fill with ice. Shake will. 

(FYI--Cheryl doesn’t eat salt, so for those who do and like a salt-rimmed glass, pour coarse kosher salt onto a small plate. Rub a lime wedge around the rim of the glass. Dip the rim into the salt.) 

Pour over ice.

Garnish with a lime wedge

 Stasha’s mocktail: Sparkling water with lime 

(We had a VERY social weekend so decided to keep it alcohol free tonight.)

 
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TONIGHT'S EPISODE

Why Do We Teach Girls That It’s Cute to Be Scared?, By Caroline Paul
Women are encouraged from childhood that they should be scared. “Aren’t you scared? Wasn’t that scary?”

• Boys/men are encouraged to NOT be scared.
• Women and especially girls should not only be encouraged to take risks, it’s time to STOP constantly telling women (and girls) that their natural state is to be afraid. 
• Women especially have been coached, trained, immersed in fear-based language and it weakens their ability to make good choices, decisions, etc. 

Emotional Addiction, Dr. Mark Steinberg

• People can become addicted to an emotional state, usually a negative one, such as fear or anger.
• Emotional addicts “feel, react, justify.” 

Main points from Stasha

• Watch out for how you talk to yourself and others, especially girls
• Change your words and thoughts to courage- and curiosity-based language
• Minor pain and inconveniences are nothing to be “scared” of
• You should also train yourself to not be afraid of major events that DO NOT PERSONALLY THREATEN YOU. (Anger, resolute, determination, etc., are fine provided they spur corrective action.)
• “Feel, think, speak, act” cycle. When people continually repeat and verbalize fear (or anger) based words, they are already 3/4s to action, and actions based on fear (or anger) are rarely rational.   

Transcript

TPM_026--Fear

Thu, 10/28 10:34AM • 52:29

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

fear, kayak, people, afraid, rational, brain, talk, life, bike, kayaker, happen, feeling, girls, situation, thought, irrational fear, occurs, real, bit, teach

SPEAKERS

Stasha Boyd, Cheryl Stuller

Stasha Boyd  00:01

Hi there. I'm Stasha

Cheryl Stuller  00:03

I'm Cheryl.

Stasha Boyd  00:05

And between us we

Cheryl Stuller  00:05

have four kids,

Stasha Boyd  00:07

three businesses,

Cheryl Stuller  00:08

two husbands and one goal. To get to the point of the matter, have your feels about it. Okay, acknowledge it, name it, and then look beyond that. Okay? Why am I afraid of this?

Stasha Boyd  00:24

Watch how you talk to yourself. Observe whether you're using more of like I'm scared or stasis, scary. Look at that. And if you are, switch it up. It's more courage based. You know, this is a challenge. This is I'm curious about this. What is happening? Why is this occurring? As opposed to oh my gosh, this is terrible. Cheryl, how goes

Cheryl Stuller  00:48

Hi, chica. How are you? How was your week?

Stasha Boyd  00:52

Okay, so I got a real short story to tell. Do things one yesterday was Mike and I's anniversary. So that was you know, 23 years married yesterday. Uh huh.

Cheryl Stuller  01:03

And a planner bursary. That's a big deal. Congratulations. Thank

Stasha Boyd  01:07

you. Thank you. It's not like a marquee one. But you know, it was fun. We went out with some friends. We actually went over to Disney and we did a pub, the monorail pub crawl. So you get on the monorail and you start at the Polynesian have drinks and appetizer there. Then you go over to the Grand Floridian little drinks and snack there. Then we ended up at the contemporary at the California grill, which was just

Cheryl Stuller  01:33

fabulous. I would be a blast. Oh my gosh, I did not know they did that.

Stasha Boyd  01:39

Yes. Well, and again, it will be a blast when the masks are God. I will tell you this, that I am not a mask girl. But yeah, it rained a little bit. So it's really crowded in there. But my story. So here's the story because we're gonna be talking about fears today. So on Wednesday, my girlfriend, Jennifer and I went kayaking, and we decided to go to Juniper run. And as you recall from our childhood, when you get into Juniper run, you get in right there at the spring, and it's super narrow, but the run is pretty quickly quick, but it's so pretty. It's seven and a half miles and it's a very fast chorus you do not turn around and come back upstream. Once you launch, you're going downstream one way or the other. So I'm in a kayak about a mile mile and a half in. I'm trying to make a turn it's very tight turn and I don't quite make the turn and I get dumped out at kayak. Oh my god, I was so annoyed. So we had like get out of the water we stand out we get all the water out of it. Blah blah, blah. I get back in. girl Let me tell you something. I turned that kayak over three more times.

Cheryl Stuller  02:42

Oh my God, I

Stasha Boyd  02:43

am bruised. I have I'm a mess. I mean, at one point it's like I the kayak flipped over and I was under it. And that that shock when you like get water and you're like inhale water up in your mouth real quick. I mean, it's like that whole couldn't breathe. Also I went to both feet down and I couldn't stand up it was too deep. The current was going quickly. My paddle was good. It was awful. It was just awful. However one of them is it was happening is that the kayak was extremely tippy. And it was just kept getting water in and I'm like why is there so much water in here? Why can't I keep it bailed out? I'm just such an awful kayaker. Oh my God, I am so sad. I am just too fat to kayak. And there are several times where I'm crying. I'm trying not to let Jim see because it's so beautiful and I don't want you to see that I'm upset. Okay, this short means three a little bit shorter, we get to the end and take the kayak out the side seam of this kayak had split into about half a kayak worth of water.

Cheryl Stuller  03:44

I was gonna say must have been that it must have been that it had nothing to do with you.

Stasha Boyd  03:51

Yeah, I could have been a little better kayaker I'm sure mainly by noticing that if your kayak is half full of water there's something wrong with the fucking kayak not make that one a bit a bit. Bit more qualified there. But But yeah, so but it's like no so now I'm realizing the reason I kept rolling over it was because I had an extra let's say 400 pounds of water in the kayak. And I just couldn't steer it just couldn't control it.

Cheryl Stuller  04:18

So we need to talk to about why you quickly went to it's me. I can't you know I want to go back to do this. Why does your brain go there? My gosh,

Stasha Boyd  04:29

I don't know. I don't know. But it really did until I figure that out as I was starting to get really really scared because it's like it was so tippy you know, my hand would go a little bit to the side of it started tip over. So for days afterwards my hands were sore from gripping the paddle so tight. So I mean until you're able to get that accurate information and you just start letting your mind go nuts, especially when the fear is real and the physical experience of being trapped under a kayak is real. I mean it was a real exercise and and dealing with them In both environmental and mental fear, it was it was kind of it's kind of wacky. Wow, that's something else. I take my research to extreme Cheryl.

Cheryl Stuller  05:09

Well, but it's so interesting you say that I laid my bike down this past weekend, and I never do that. What happened? Well, I pulled into a gas station to fill up. And two things happen. I stopped short too quickly. My wheel was turned and I have a heavy bike. Yeah, I went to put my foot down and I could have saved it, but my pant leg got caught. So I had I had no leg to go out. And thank God, I didn't put my hand out because then I would have really hurt my shoulder or my wrist. I just, I just slowly fell over.

Stasha Boyd  05:55

weren't moving. I mean, that's, that's it, that's a good thing. We've had we've been on our bike too, and had that situation where it's like, you've just come up to a stop. And in our case, it was an unfamiliar bike. It was a motorcycle that we'd rented. And it was a Goldwing, massive brand new Goldwing. But that sensation of being that quick stop, and suddenly the bike just starts tipping over, like, oh, like some that awful laugh and little try and tricycle that used to fall over. And it's just going there's nothing you can do.

Cheryl Stuller  06:22

Once it goes and it's heavy like that. There's nothing you can do. Exactly. I was so upset. It was just cosmetic. But I've got two things to replace now on my bike cylinder in my mirror, but all good, all good. Just a humbling experience. They were all been around at the gas station. Oh, right. And when I finally got the bike off of me and stood up, everybody was just standing there with their mouth. To say, like, I'm good, I'm good, everybody, I'm good.

Stasha Boyd  06:59

You know, my my definition of experience, right? Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.

Cheryl Stuller  07:06

Exactly, very, very true.

Stasha Boyd  07:09

So very humbling. So I'm gonna say since yesterday, it was our anniversary, we had our big drinking night out this week last night. So I'm just going with a little bit of a nice bubbly beverage. That's, that's for me, what you got,

Cheryl Stuller  07:22

I did put an ultimate Margarita recipe on the website or on the show notes. So it's three different liquors in it. Yeah, I'm not drinking that right now. But I could be this weekend, but, or maybe

Stasha Boyd  07:39

later. So every later who knows, we'll use those to kind of go through. So this episode is actually going to be go live on Halloween weekend. And that's why we pick the topic. So the topic is Cheryl, let them have it. Fear, fear. Um, and it's not about fears like Halloween, I mean, that's that's kind of fun to hear, you know, go into the haunted houses or watching the scary movies, you know, that's getting that kind of visceral thing. But this is a topic that I picked. I picked it. Because one of the things that I noticed a lot like women in our age, especially women in midlife, or a lot of women are facing a lot of changes. And women I think are are conditioned to fear change, as if that's their normal condition. They're they're conditioned to fear a lot of things. And that as we get older, it's like unless you recognize that and are able to kind of like change your what you're thinking or change your thoughts around it. It can be super limiting, it can prevent you from making positive changes, it can prevent you from leading an adventurous life. It's that can be a real problem. So that's that was one of those why it was important to me. What What are your thoughts around fear?

Cheryl Stuller  08:53

You and you were mentioning our childhood and what what little girls are are told and I had the opposite. You know, I grew up given a lot of responsibility around large machinery. There wasn't any kind of talk about you need to be afraid of this and not do this. It was more like Get your ass out there and get it done. Yeah, so I don't have a lot of fears. Um, so but we're going to talk about because it was interesting, when I started to research it, there's actually three different types of fear. Right. And I like I like knowing the definition of things. So the first one is rational fear. So that's a real imminent threat. You know, you're at the gas station and somebody walks in with a gun and they're gonna rob it. Right. You absolutely need to be afraid in that situation. Yeah. And then there's Primal Fear, which is an innate or natural fear program into our brain. And you mentioned suffocation. Yeah, that feeling of drowning. Yeah, feeling of drowning, not being able to get your brass claustrophobia, assuming that would be something like that. And then irrational fear fears that don't make rational sense and vary between people.

Stasha Boyd  10:17

Yeah. And I think those are like pretty good, like the common definitions of the three primary types of fear. I think what we've done though, is people have we've conflated it, and that a lot of things that are actually just irrational fears, or they might be rational in one situation, but not in another, are just broadening and broadening and broadening. And for me, I keep, I get very annoyed, and I will admit that I find this more angering, because I don't think I as a as a girl, I don't think I was raised to fear a lot of things. I was very lucky in that part of it was because we were kind of feral, you know, we just kind of went out and did our thing. Part of it was because, you know, it was you know, get out there and work and go go do something it wasn't, it wasn't part of our how we were raised. Now, I do remember having people around me, you know, like, if we were down at church or something, and we would want to go outside and play, you know, it would be like, you know, don't be out there after dark. You know, that scary out there. You know, but that's more like the church ladies that were kind of like calling down the kids. It wasn't something that I actually listened to. But I can recall it occurring. So I've always been kind of little intrepid little, I was always an intrepid little kid. But I see now things happening, where you have people constantly, Oh, I'm so scared. Isn't this such a scary time? Everything's so scary. And I hear that more and more and more. And I personally just find it irritating as all get out. Because I don't think going through life scared is a good way to be. Whether that's a rational or an irrational fear. Then that was it. But like, think about primal fears is that they're usually short lived. They last as long as the threat is present. It becomes an irrational fear when the threat is gone, or the threat was never really there. But you're hanging on to the fear, you know, as that state?

Cheryl Stuller  12:12

And do you feel like to that? Because we're talking more openly about oh, these are scary times, you know, climate, the politics, the mass shootings, anger on the road, do you feel like that's leading more into the anxiety that we're experiencing? Because I see the two code mingling with each other?

Stasha Boyd  12:37

Yes, I do. And I think because here's the thing too, with like the idea of couching things in terms of fear, fear and anger are basically two of the two are very similar things. Usually anger is a response to fear. It's like one of the things I used to teach when I was on, I would do orientations when I worked at Universal Studios. And I would talk about like a Halloween Horror Nights, the incidences of people getting punched at Halloween Horror Nights of employees getting punched, was pretty would go up. Well, you know, well, Lottie die, you've just taken them into this theme park, you've charged them, you know, 100 Yeah, lots and lots of money. You've liquored them up, now you're putting something into a haunted house, and you scared them. And your surprise was that he turns around and punches you. It's like, that's almost a natural reaction to fear. So he made me afraid, boom, you lash back out, because you got to fight the thing off. So if we are putting ourselves in this kind of constant state of fear, that lashing out becomes the next natural step, it also becomes the justification for why people do it. Well, you know, I had to do this terrible thing, because, and there was actually one of the notes that I have in here, I found this great article. And it talks about what they call the emotional addicts, once people are kind of addicted to a feeling which you can get addicted to. And usually it's a negative feeling. People will get addicted to feeling angry, or they'll get addicted to feeling fearful. And then they will either seek out circumstances to produce those fears in them, or they will project those fears onto any benign circumstance. So you know, like you said, Yeah, you're driving down the street and becomes, oh my gosh, look at that person over there. They might pull over into me. Oh, so I'm afraid of them. Well, now I'm going to drive aggressively to counteract that. So it creates this feedback loop. But one of the things they call it what the emotional addict does is it feel react, justify. So they experienced the feeling of fear. They react to it in some way, either an angrily lashing out or contracting in or withdraw doing something, and then they justify that action based upon the feeling that they have

Cheryl Stuller  14:47

based upon the feeling and you know, dopamine gets released when you're afraid so you can get addicted to that thrill of that dopamine being released. and you want to recreate that, you know,

Stasha Boyd  15:04

and cortisol. Cortisol is another one. So and if you're already if you're living in constant, you know, fear base and you're constantly putting out that the stress or quarters court stress or hormone cortisol, then that feeling

Cheryl Stuller  15:18

bliss, you

Stasha Boyd  15:21

feeling, that feeling of exhaustion that so that adds to the feelings of anger and fear and just general wretchedness because now you're tired too, emotionally and mentally tired and exhausted.

Cheryl Stuller  15:33

Mm hmm. So, um, I, you know, I've never been in an accident until a couple years ago. And I had my grandson with me, and we were driving down the road. And a guy was pulling from the side. And I saw him he saw me we looked at each other and I you know how you go, don't you do it? Yeah. And he Well, he was driving drunk. Oh, so he did pull out and hit us on the side. And I tried to avoid him. I went into the it was a two lane to lane with that middle turn lane. I tried to avoid him by going into the middle lane. Couldn't do it. And the sound that a car makes when it's hit and all the airbags go off. And we had the curtain airbags. So we had, everything went off in the front, down the side. And then it was smoky. It sound like a gun went off inside. And I had ever the smell. I had never experienced that before. And I I don't like loud noises. Yeah, so, um, it really took me I had to really think about that when I got back into a car again, yeah, to not have that irrational fear that every time I get into a car, this is gonna happen again. Yeah. So I really had to talk myself through that too, to be able to get back into a car again, you know?

Stasha Boyd  17:07

Well, and that's how sometimes how a lot of things will happen is that something legitimate occurs, and an emotional reaction takes place. So a lot of chemicals, things firing in the brain, you know, it's like a lot of reactions. Again, not just concern for your own safety of that situation. But also you had your grandchild with you. So you know, you're now you've got this, this maternal type, emotional reaction going on as well. And then so the thing occurs, and now that's kind of gone into your reptile brain back there in the back, they Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna protect that my person, I'm gonna protect them. And so now they get into a similar situation. And the reptile brain kind of takes over and goes, alright, we got to worry about this, even though that fear is gone. So that's when your your prefrontal cortex when you're thinking brains got to come in, like you said, and talk yourself back through it and go, Okay, I see what happened. I see what you're trying to do here, Brian, I see what you're trying to do. And I appreciate you trying to help right now. But you're not helping. We're gonna go back to being reasonable and rational about this. And I think sometimes that's actually kind of the things that help like we're talking about the story with the kayak, I got so deep into this, I didn't have I didn't have the rational information. So my, my reptile brain took over my life promise over that, that sense of drowning when that occurred. But also, every bad negative thought started just kind of you know, zinging through my brain because it's trying to justify and figure out for me why this is happening. So it's telling me all the bullshit I used to tell myself or other people would say, or whatever. So that's starting to go on. I've gotten to where though, it's like, as soon as I go,

Cheryl Stuller  18:47

let me interrupt you. i. So what What were you telling how did that tie in? I'm a little confused on that. Oh, so

Stasha Boyd  18:55

rather than saying, Okay, what is wrong with this kayak? Because I can handle a kayak better than this. I'm completely capable. kayaker, why does this thing keep rolling over? Um, my first thought was, or the place that I went to was, you know, obviously Sasha, your incompetence?

Cheryl Stuller  19:16

Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, your your your brain went to that, you know, carousel that keeps playing sometimes. Yeah,

Stasha Boyd  19:25

that we all do. Yeah, the tape recorder of that that negative nattering nilly that just gets into your head and again, like I said, Everybody's got it. Um, but because of like, you know, work and practice and things I've done before and for years, as soon as we got out of that, the water and I saw that split in the kayak. It was almost like, wait, what? Oh, my God. And from there until we got out by the time we got home, that all that negative talk that was gone. It was replaced a bit with anger. I was really mad, I was getting really mad. And I was trying to like not get and I was mad at myself for being silly and I was mad at a kayak. But then I started thinking about it. So we got home and got started taking a closer look at that kayak. And there was evidence that it had been busted before and somebody glued the same back together. And the thing is, in this particular type of kayak, it's it's an inexpensive brand of kayak, it's not not a high end piece at all, it really can't be glued back together like that, if it's going to repair it would have to be sent back to the manufacturer. And, and again, it's not really worth it. So what I figured out was that whoever sold my friend, this kayak, it had split, they glued it together and made it clean enough that you didn't notice. And then they never told her that that had been a damaged kayak and they sold it for a it was like a an inexpensive, you know, cheap kayak, but they shouldn't be they never told her and had something

Cheryl Stuller  20:58

because you don't know somebody swimming experience, you don't know somebody's ability to be trapped under the water like that, how comfortable they are with that that's that's a high risk.

Stasha Boyd  21:08

It was Yeah, and this person like them, they just wanted their money. They just wanted their I don't wanna have like a 400 or $500, or whatever. But that's what, that's the thing. But no, but So going back to the thing is like, I got my information back, I got the right information, and my mind was able to switch back pretty quickly. I think people who don't have that practice at recognizing when of when their fear is becoming irrational or becoming, or when it was irrational, but there's new information. They'll stay in it, they'll stay in the fear, and they will actually tell themselves that their rational brain is wrong. They'll say, you know, it's like, oh, no, I'm right. My fear is justified here. I shouldn't be afraid. Even though the rational brain might say go back to whole thing about the the driving and the accident. Okay, that was a one off that this happened. It's not going to happen every day. It's a rare event. But they'll say yes, but now I've seen that it could happen. I have to be on guard every single time they get in the car. And rather than going okay, whenever you drive, you should be alert, but not fearful. They don't make they don't make that contract. They don't make that back. They never come back from the from the initial stimulus, I guess.

Cheryl Stuller  22:21

So what about this, so when I was nine or 10, and I've told this story before on another podcast, but we were out in the field warming the cows, and that storm came up really quick. The cows were underneath the tree, and lightning struck. It was really loud. You know, it was kind of a similar thing to the car. And the difference between the car was my grandson was in there and I was more concerned about him and getting out of the car. So I didn't have time to think about how that sound affected me was similar to what happened with the lightning and blowing up the cows. I to this day, do not like fireworks, right? I to this day don't like loud concerts or loud noises or balloons are anything that can can do that. Um, I try to stay away from those things. I always took my kids to the fireworks, but I would stay in the car. So I didn't let it paralyze me. Right it at the same time. It created a response in me. That was uncomfortable. It wasn't paralyzing. But it was uncomfortable. And I didn't want to be around that. Right?

Stasha Boyd  23:48

Well, I think the thing is, is like those, those very super shocky kind of things that occur. Yeah, they make, especially depending upon your age, they will make you be very impressionable. And they'll make a big impression upon you and upon you, especially a young growing brain. But then later in life, you can decide if you want to do something about it or not. I mean, there's exposure therapies where you can work with a behaviorist or a counselor who like do the smaller and smaller exposures. And those normally work for people who might have a fear of spiders or, again, an irrational paralyzing effects your life in a negative way. fear of spiders, not just I don't like spiders, fear of snakes, a lot of people are afraid of snakes. I think a lot more people are actually afraid of being surprised by a snake than they are by an actual snake. Because it's like they can go to the zoo and see the snakes behind the glass. They're not afraid of that. They can see him in books, people who have a true phobia, they can't do either of those things. Right. So then it becomes just a matter of decision making. It's like okay, does this bother me enough that I want to change it? Does it affect my life enough that it makes it difficult to do things that I want to do? If the answer's no then Don't worry about it, you know, you don't want about your merry way. If it does bother somebody and they want to make a change, then there are then your mind is pliable. Your, your thinking brain can overcome these deep seated fears. Um, and that's really the question for anybody whether because I don't say you know, your your I don't know that you're afraid of loud noises because you don't go out of your way to avoid them. Like you were saying it doesn't stop you from your life, you just know that you don't like them. Is that right?

Cheryl Stuller  25:30

Yeah, yeah, I let my kid I would still take my kids to fireworks and things like that. But I would definitely remove myself enough that it didn't affect me close range or anything like that. So I would make adjustments. And I, I don't want to get over that. You know, it's not paralyzing enough that I would need to get over that. And I'm comfortable with what I do to manage it. Right. Well, and

Stasha Boyd  25:59

for similar one, I think I talked about this in the set that same episode. You know, for the longest time, I was terrified of lightning. And so one day, I realized that I wasn't terrified of lightning, my mother was terrified of lightning, and I took on her fear. And then I kind of just said, it's like, you know, I don't have to be afraid of this anymore. And it was literally almost like a light bulb going off, like a light bulb coming on going, Oh, okay. And again, I'm still respectful of lightning, if it's popping down like crazy, I'm not gonna go stand in the middle of the yard holding up a golf club. But at the same time, it's like, I can sit outside and a thunderstorm now on my porch. If it does start popping down, the reasonable rational response is to get off your ass and go inside. That's not being afraid that's been, you know, the reasonable rational response. But um, that's the key is whether or not like you said, it's a rational fear or an irrational fear, or if it's rational caution, or irrational lack of caution. Because I think that's the other side of this is like, you can be irrationally unconscious. I'm trying to do this. I'm sure there's a word for that. And I'm just not thinking of it right now. But where was I cavalier about a legitimate danger. Like somebody who does not have the goal, like who go mountain climbing, it's like, they decide to climb up mountains? Well, if you want to go climb those mountains, and they'll be like, hanging off by one finger, or whatever. And I'm like, Okay, if you have that level of skill, awesome, you know, whatever. But then there are people who don't have that level of skill, they just see somebody else doing it and say, Hey, man, I can do that too. Those are the people have a tendency to die a little bit more, I think, you know, I remember when I was learning to scuba dive, one of the things the instructor said was no, the most important thing, whenever you're involved in a dangerous to the point of being deadly sport, is to know your limits and dive within them. And the same thing that are when I was taking the motorcycle course, the instructor said, here's the thing, know, your skill level, and ride within it. You know, and I think that's an important, that's just good life advice.

Cheryl Stuller  28:14

When you know, you don't want to jump out of a plane and go skydiving,

Stasha Boyd  28:19

I do. Exactly.

Cheryl Stuller  28:22

You know, don't and less and less and less something you want to challenge yourself on, you know, and you research it, and you choose the safest company and you make sure you check your equipment, and you do all those things. And you're okay with that little bit of fear or a lot of bit of fear, whatever it is, you're okay with that knowing that it's going to be a temporary thing. I'm okay with feeling this fear,

Stasha Boyd  28:49

you know, or just this discomfort because that actually leads to another article that I want to put in our show notes that I found is the title of the article is, why do we teach girls that it's cute to be scared. And I think that happens to a lot of young girls. And again, I don't think it happens so much to you and I but it happened to a lot of toddlers to a lot of girls who grew up to be women. And whereas their brothers are taught to go out and run around on the playground, and if you skinned your knee, you know, get up and get back out there. If you're climbing up to the top of a high slide, nobody says Is it scary up there? They say hey, this was that fun. Whereas with little girls, they'll be like, Oh my gosh, is that scary? Or if they bump their knee or they scrape their knee up? They'll say like, Oh, I'm so sorry, honey, come sit by me. Rather than saying you're okay, dusted off, get back out there and encourage that sense of adventure because when they when they teach girls to be afraid of minor pain, cautionary pain, okay, this is what a risk is. Yeah, if you run really fast, you can fall down and scrape your knee. That hurts a little bit but it's not really that bad is it?

Cheryl Stuller  29:53

And see I when I used to teach WSI, which is to teaching people to be swimming Instructors Yeah, I would caution them about their terminology. And I think I think you just hit on that a lot of how we talked to our kids growing up, creates that fear, even if something didn't happen to them just because of how we're phrasing things. So, for example, um, it's okay, it's okay to swim in the deep end, you're not going to drowned. You know, that's a negative connotation that you put in somebody's mind, that shouldn't even be there. Right? Instead, you should be talking about this as what you do. If you need to take a rest in the water, you flip over onto your back and you float. And this is how we're going to do this. And this is how we're going to practice this. So you have that skill set. It's kind of that terminology and way of looking things at things that I think you may be right that girls were taught to differently than boys were taught to write. Thank goodness, I was I was such a tomboy. I did not get any of that. I'm so glad about that. My, my fear comes from like the the real experience of feeling something. Yeah, at that age, like that lightning thing that had such a big impact on me. Yeah.

Stasha Boyd  31:20

Well, and again, I think that's that goes back to but some of its just pervasive societally, like, one of the things that I noticed is kind of like, going into what why the topic is so important to me, is, to me, it's like, we're almost taking on a national discussion of fear. Whereas, um, the President's first job is the safety of the American people. No, it's not. It really isn't the President's number one job is, you know, to uphold the Constitution, the United States of America, and people have different definitions of what that actually means. But safety, my personal safety is not the responsibility of the President, the governor, my boss, my my mom, my anybody else, my safety is my responsibility. But that's not my first responsibility. My first responsibility to me is to live a meaningful life. And I cannot live a meaningful life, if I'm afraid of everything, you have to have courage, you have to have the ability to assess risk, you have to have the ability to to recognize what is and isn't a reasonable fear, and how having fear and phrasing things as things to be afraid of prevents action. So and I think you and I talked about this one time before, one of the things that drives me nuts is when I hear people talk, you know, gun gun violence, oh, gun violence, it's so scary. Now, these mass shootings are all so scary, everything is so scary. And I'm like, okay, unless you're actually in a situation where there's a mass shooting, it is not rational to be afraid of mass shootings. Because they're extremely even with everything we know about them. They're extremely rare. Now, it is completely rational to be angry about them, it is completely rational to be resolute and to say this needs to stop it is completely rational. Even if I can find it completely distasteful, it's rational to say, well, that's the price of living in a free world. I mean, again, I find that incredibly distasteful, but that's a rational thought around it. Um, but the idea that you're supposed to like, go to Publix, and go grocery shopping and be afraid, just all day, every day, because of the possibilities of gun violence, or every time you see something on TV, it brings back up that feeling of fear, as opposed to the feeling of action. That's a problem. Um, safe spaces. The idea that there's such a thing as a safe space where you know, you don't even have to hear something that might upset you. And so I need to be safe from words, I need to be safe from ideas that I don't like, I need to be safe from anyone ever, ever disagreeing with me. Safety is the is part and parcel of fear. It's the being safe is in a way, the absence of being afraid. And I know that

Cheryl Stuller  34:09

we have control over that for ourselves. Yeah, and it's okay to to be afraid of something, but then you have to look at it for what it really is. And process through that and not let it stop you from moving forward. Right. I can be afraid of heights, but I'm still going to hike up a mountain right now. Do I take precautions and do I make sure the weather's gonna be good and then it's not going to be too windy and all of that? Absolutely. But I'm not going to let it stop me from doing something.

Stasha Boyd  34:42

Yeah. And also the end those are like the physical ideas of safety and people think about that because even people who are fearful or afraid of heights, they don't walk around all day going oh my gosh, I'm so afraid. You know they don't walk down a flight of stairs you know, holding on to the wall they manage they do their their normal day. Have a thing, it's when it becomes to the point where you're not able to function properly. Or you're not engaging in a relatively sane fashion with the world. Or you're letting it stop you from doing things that are either your obligation and responsibility to do four things that you said you want to do in order to to live a more fulfilling life. And everybody gets to make that decision for themselves. You know, nobody can say, okay, you know, you really need to, you really need to go grow, okay, you need to, you could do a little better. Nobody needs to say that. But everyone should have the ability to be able to assess, when when something afraid it makes a when they're afraid of something, why they're afraid of it, and how long they should remain afraid of it. You know, like I said, as soon as I realized what my situation was, with that kayak, I was able to like the framing changed, and I could change. But people who are not either who've never been exposed to that kind of thinking, they don't know, they're, they're like me before I knew I knew about the split in the scene. They're just experiencing this fear and it's not theirs. It's not real. That's not right. It is real, it is a real fear that they don't have to hang on to.

Cheryl Stuller  36:19

Let's talk about the top 10 fears in general of people like there's a list. Okay. All right. Number one, what would you imagine number one is public speaking. That's a big one for people yet flying. Flying is the number one fear.

Stasha Boyd  36:40

Really? Hmm, yeah, now everybody's all up in arms ever being able to fly. Okay, so flying is the number one fear.

Cheryl Stuller  36:47

Flying is the number one heights is number two, a lot of people have a fear of heights. Public speaking is third. Fear of the dark. This is interesting fear of intimacy. Really, hmm. and commitment. So I know, I know, someone who got hurt really bad. And from that has never been in a relationship again, because they are afraid of getting hurt again. So that's an example of somebody experiencing something. And this one, I think, is an important one. Because as you say, we're changing. Yeah, you know, in our age group, we're getting divorced, separated, people are passing away, if you have that fear of commitment and intimacy and having to go through that again, and that stops you from living and having that connection, that's so important. Um, I just think what, what a, what a wasted opportunity, you know, to be happy again,

Stasha Boyd  37:59

well, and then that that goes back to that idea, you know, your, your brain is trying to protect you from pain, right, you know, and so it's giving you all the thoughts that is going to keep you from you know, it's going to keep you what it thinks is protected. Right, right. So if you want to overcome that, then you have to your front brain has to teach the rest of your brain, okay, we're going to make a different choice now. And until you get that new thought process being the dominant thought process, it's not going to The thing is though most people will again, not most, but some people will think, Okay, well I'm well, I cannot be hurt from relationships. It's like, okay, yeah, you can, you will be in fact, what you have to learn is that it's okay, I can be mildly hurt, I can be significantly hurt, and still be just fine. And still be okay. So what else is on the list? Was that number five or six, intimacy commitment was up.

Cheryl Stuller  38:50

And just intimacy and commitment. That's two separate things rejection and fear of death. Fear of failure, and fear of spiders and snakes. Wow. spiders and snakes? Yeah. The

Stasha Boyd  39:06

poor snakes and spiders and they really get a bad rap. That's just awful. They really, there was one thing I think it's a Seinfeld comedy or a Seinfeld joke that talks about how on and I think you'd seen this list, because it talks about how the fear of public speaking ranks higher than the fear of death. And he said that so that basically that means that at any funeral, keep in mind that the guy who's giving the eulogy would probably rather be in the casket. And that was that Seinfeld that's not my job. We're gonna get that one Seinfeld is I hope it's Seinfeld. Um,

Cheryl Stuller  39:41

I spent I had I took a public speaking class in college. Yeah. And at that point, I had never been in front of anybody doing anything like that. And I didn't know I had a fear until I got up in front of the class to give my presentation Yeah. And my mind went blank, my face went wide, I started sweating. And then I imagined myself running out of the classroom. Yeah, and I had to, I had to pause and just rationally think about this is not gonna kill me, I am not gonna die. I'm you. There's no physical damage that's gonna come to me, I just need to process through this and take a minute and breathe. Focus on my paper, like I talked myself out of that. And I even said to the class, I was like, this is the first time I've ever done this guy. So bear with me, I'm going to start over, right. And then once I started over, and I kind of got my breath back and my voice I mean, my voice was shaking. Yeah. Once I got through that first one, I was okay. Yeah.

Stasha Boyd  40:52

Well, and that is, the thing is like, you know, whenever you do have like a when a fear attack happens, and basically what a panic attack or an anxiety attack is, it's real physical symptoms. Its breath, it's your heart rate, it's the the sensitivity of your skin, it's, you know, your brain kind of shuts down, and it kind of locks and locks into a thought pattern. I mean, all of this occurs really quickly. So so the actual fear response, I wouldn't tell people, I don't want everyone to say that fear itself is not real fear is very real. And has anyone who's ever experienced a panic attack can tell you, it's terrifying. You know, it's like you something. And again, I've never had that kind of a panic attack. But I've witnessed them and friends of mine who've been able to explain it later. And they're like, you actually feel like you are dying, and you hope you get on with it. Right? It's like, because that is just that unpleasant and awful of a feeling. Um, and the other thing, too, with the, with the the idea of the Oh, she was the word the the, ah, I just lost my train of thought I looked down. Oh, I know what it was. But the thing is, like, No, I have no, I have never had a fear of public speaking. And to the point where I'd be like, I don't get this Get up. Why don't you please get up there? Why are you doing this? And so I had to learn one point in my life, that just because I find a fear ridiculous, or non existent, or I think it doesn't exist or shouldn't exist, doesn't mean that it doesn't actually exist for somebody else.

Cheryl Stuller  42:23

For somebody else. Yeah. And we have to have a bit towards that.

Stasha Boyd  42:28

Yeah. Same thing with like, you know, spiders and snakes and whatnot. You know, for me, I always tell people, like, you know, I'm not afraid of snakes. I'm afraid of being sick. I don't like being surprised by a snake. I'm not afraid of it. I just don't like being surprised. Um, whereas the things like you know, that I know are coming. Like darkness. We were talking about innate fear, there was a Nate fear of being stuck in the dark. You know, I don't know why that is. But it is because we've spent a millennia as human beings is probably because bad things happen when it's completely pitch black. But, um, but no, that's an innate fear of darkness.

Cheryl Stuller  43:04

Well, a lot of my kiddos that come into custody, have fears surrounding different scenarios, like one little girl had a fear of being in the car at night, because something happened to her in a car at night. Right? So dealing with those specific things that happen that turn into fears, right? It's something that can be worked through with therapy. So I can suggest therapy as a way to deal with fears like

Stasha Boyd  43:34

that. And I agree 100% Because I think that's the other thing too, a lot of times that we kind of say okay, well, once you've experienced the fear, or the trauma traumatic event, that the damage is done, and the damage is permanent. It's not we are a resilient people, we are a resilient creatures, and especially our minds, especially, you know, when if you whether you apply yourself with help with professionals or whatever, you do not have to stay in this negative or bad space, you you can move forward and move through anything. If not unchanged, you can you can move through it. And crippled, you know, undamaged and you're not constantly you're you're not a person who is now forever going to have a set and not even a setback if we're ever going to have a millstone that they just haul around with them. You can learn if you want to do whatever the trauma was, whatever the the fear was, you can learn how you're going to deal with it, and how you can pick it up and set it aside whenever you need to. And not have to let it stop you

Cheryl Stuller  44:45

moving forward. Exactly. Yeah.

Stasha Boyd  44:49

It's never that you're not going to remember it. It's never that it's not going to be there. It's never that it's not going to affect you or have affected you. But you get to decide how and when you want it to keep affecting you.

Cheryl Stuller  44:59

Excellent. Yeah, I would definitely say that about the lightning and the cow thing, I will never forget that I will never forget the sound of it, the smell of it, the sight of it. But I also, you know, have really worked hard to process through that and not let it keep me crippled. You know,

Stasha Boyd  45:19

I think I'm surprised there's one thing that's not on the list. And I wonder if it's just kind of not on the list, but it's kind of buried in other things. Fear of humiliation hmm, I got a lot of people that kind

Cheryl Stuller  45:32

of goes with rejection I'm maybe

Stasha Boyd  45:34

I think rejection and failure. Maybe that's maybe that's the just kind of like, interspersed into into those two things unmarried, maybe with intimacy as well. Because I would think that for me, I think being I, you know, I don't like to be embarrassed, I don't like and I know a lot of people who for whom they will not do anything, if they if there's any opportunity that they could look like a fool, or look like a clown, you know that that fear of being embarrassed is just too great.

Cheryl Stuller  46:02

So do you think that comes down to confidence in ourselves?

Stasha Boyd  46:07

No, I don't think so. I think it's a little bit more innate than that. Because a lot of these some of these people are very accomplished, folks. I'm the same way people who are who have a fear of heights, it's not like they're unbalanced. But man, they have a balanced problem. I think it's I think it is something that you know, there is something about being accepted by the group being accepted by people. Yes, I think you're right, I think it is a subset of fear of rejection. And being laughed at or being just saw smokey walk behind me they're being laughed at or being humiliated is there is a rejection from from your community, right. And then other rings,

Cheryl Stuller  46:47

something, there's something if somebody feels like that there's something that happened around that, that gives you a fear of going forward? I think for like heights and flying and things like that, it's that loss of control, you know, you're not in control. I know, that's a lot of it for me, if I'm become afraid of something like that. Yeah. It's that I don't feel in control of it.

Stasha Boyd  47:10

Yeah. And I think that's, that feels threatening, it's like, you know, whatever it is that makes you feel threatened, whether it's threatened from being lost, or, you know, shut out of a group or threatened from not being able to, like control the situation around you. It's the field of threat, feeling of threat. But I want to kind of get it I think we're getting getting close to the end of our conversation time. So for me, the points the main points, I think that I the reason why the topic I think is important to me, is my main point is chain is watch how you talk to yourself. Observe whether you're using words like I'm scared, or this is scary. Look at that. And if you are, switch it up said it's more courage based, you know, this is a challenge. This is I'm curious about this, what is happening? Why is this occurring? As opposed to oh my gosh, this is terrible. So because your language if you have that whole idea behind that feel, react, justify, if you feel that feeling of scared, react with courage, or react with curiosity, or react with challenge, and then you can justify, you know, okay, well, this is why I explored it further, or this is why I looked into it and said, it's not worth worrying about, as opposed to justifying a negative action based upon a fear.

Cheryl Stuller  48:25

And it's kind of like what we've talked about with other things, have your fields about it, okay, acknowledge it, name it, and then look beyond that. Okay, why am I afraid of this? Why is this? Why am I afraid of it? Is it rational? Is it irrational? Is it primal? What is going on here and talk, talk into it and talk, you know, directly at it and figure that out for for yourself and then figure out how you're going to go forward? And don't let it stop you? Yeah.

Stasha Boyd  48:57

And recognize that it's completely common to conflate an inconvenience with a threat. You know, sometimes things are inconvenience and or whether something is an inconvenience, or it's an irritation. Not everything is worthy of fear. Sometimes we just we feel afraid of something simply because because it's a confusion in our mind. Somebody cutting me off in traffic. That's nothing to be afraid of. Bad Drivers. Nothing. It's like if you're being alert, nothing to be afraid of. It is something to be completely like, okay, jerk. That's different. Don't, don't let your default position to be afraid of things that are just life.

Cheryl Stuller  49:41

Right, right. Don't get wrapped up in that. Can you see how dark it's getting here? Like you're still really light and I'm getting really dark here. We've got a storm coming in. So I

Stasha Boyd  49:51

was wondering why I'm like, did you turn the lights off, but now

Cheryl Stuller  49:56

all of a sudden did that so I'm sorry guys. We can quit when we ever get on YouTube. That's what happened.

Stasha Boyd  50:03

I swear to God we are going to figure this out people we really are going to figure out you to one of these days before we die, I guess. Um, but but that's it. That's it and I want people again women our age, you have so much life ahead of you have so many things that you can do. I really want to encourage women to really dig into the to their courage, dig into the resilience, dig into the desert, their adventure. And as you get older, don't let your will get smaller, because of fear. Let it get bigger. And that's that's kind of I think the the thing that I really, I worry about people who embrace fear. Yeah, absolute peddle fear. Yeah. Yeah, that's what we got. That's right. What

Cheryl Stuller  50:45

are we talking about? Next episode?

Stasha Boyd  50:48

Oh, Cheryl, you are going to be so excited.

Cheryl Stuller  50:52

I think you are. I think this is my least comfortable subject that I that I'm that I know about?

Stasha Boyd  51:01

Well, because it's a tough one. It's a tough one right now. But, ladies, next week, Cheryl and I are gonna be talking about politics, politics, but here's the thing, not necessarily about, you know, our thoughts on all things political right now, um, but I'm sure that will come up. But mainly, it's like, it's because next next, our next episodes gonna be dropping on the it'll be one year from the midterm elections in the US. So that means in the next year, our crazy politics are going to get crazier. And how are we going to get through this next year without losing our minds without losing all of our friends without you know, trying to maintain a, what our sense of normalcy is going to be. And so and I think that that, that being able to talk about politics and being able to understand them in some way, is important. So we want our listeners too, to kind of get into that and we're going to get into it.

Cheryl Stuller  51:52

And that's going to be an interesting one.

Stasha Boyd  51:55

Alright, everybody, once again, ladies, thank you so much for joining us. If you have any questions. If you want to find out more about something or less, please let us know in our comments. We're so grateful you're listening as always. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Cheryl.

Cheryl Stuller  52:12

Have a great week, everybody and to you Stasia and to my Happy anniversary. That's a big deal. I'm really proud of you.

Stasha Boyd  52:20

One feature in yours. Alright, everybody, talk to you later. Bye.

Cheryl Stuller  52:26

I